


Circus Housekeeping

by Fabrisse



Category: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-10
Updated: 2013-12-10
Packaged: 2018-01-04 05:18:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1076994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fabrisse/pseuds/Fabrisse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A few months after "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy", George Smiley comes back from his weekly briefing from the minister with photographs and questions.  The American services want answers before they'll get back into bed with MI6.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Circus Housekeeping

**Author's Note:**

  * For [earlofcardigans](https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlofcardigans/gifts).



> If this were the book 'verse, it would be set a few months before "The Honourable Schoolboy" as well as several months after the events in the movie.
> 
> Warning for derogatory words for gays.

Smiley came up the stairs with the sealed dispatch case in his hand. He caught Connie's eye, and she said to the group she was working with, "I'll be back in half an hour, and I want to see the connections." She followed in his wake to the SCIF he used as his office. He motioned her to his right.

"Bad news?"

"Neither Lacon nor the minister like me much."

"More fool he."

Smiley gave a half nod and opened the case. "The Americans are concerned about our ability to be blackmailed, apparently."

"Nothing for me, more's the pity."

Smiley pulled out an envelope, and Connie looked at the pictures inside. "I worked as a tutor. Shared a house with young people…"

"It's the bottles, Connie."

She shook her head. "I've never opened my mouth. Not about the war, not about here."

"I know."

He pulled out another envelope and deliberately spilled its contents over the table. There were a dozen pictures of Ann, all with men. None of the men were him.

Connie shot him a glance.

He said, "I knew of course. The fact of them if not their names. Haydon was… the most regrettable."

"She doesn't deserve you, you know."

His lips twitched. "When we married, people said I didn't deserve her. Class differences meant more then, of course."

Connie said, "Too many people want the old days back -- everyone knowing their place. They're mad, every last one of them."

"It's one reason I stayed with the service. It seemed more like a place where one could rise on merit."

Connie said, "But the Bill Haydons still win the pot."

"Not ultimately."

"No." There was a long pause. "Did we ever find out who shot him?"

"Not officially."

She looked at him sharply. "Unofficially?"

"Who'd been betrayed the most? And knew Sarrett?"

Connie swallowed hard. "I see. Best to keep it unofficial, then. Any more of these lovely gifts?"

"Several. Most aren't at issue -- minor affairs between consenting adults who aren't married. They should have filed forms to be vetted, but it's mostly just reminding them of the fact."

"How many are at issue?"

"Who do you think's the best of the up and comers?"

Connie resettled back in her chair. "Guillam. He didn't trust me until I'd produced results which means he's not a fool. I still don't think he likes me much, but he doesn't let it get in the way of our working together when it's needful. He doesn't think because I have to come up four flights in the delivery lift instead of taking the stairs, that I'm senile or past it or deaf. You'd be surprised at how loudly some of the young ones talk."

"They don't understand silence." He let this one stretch. "I agree with you about Guillam." He opened an envelope. There were several photographs of a man in his late thirties, many with Guillam, including pictures showing the address of the flat they shared and some with time stamps that implied much with the shadows behind the curtains.

"Nasty."

Smiley met her eyes.

Connie said, "Not Guillam. He was obviously very careful."

"Filed a vetting report when they became flatmates. Noted Mister Raglin's Irish surname for in-depth vetting. The man is cleaner than anyone in this building. I even went over it, quietly, just before Control left to make certain it wasn't just a very good legend. Mark Raglin is exactly what he seems: a respectable school teacher who likes opera and attends the National Theater on opening nights."

"And Peter Guillam's lover." She indicated one of the shadowed photographs.

"Not any more. He ended it during the whole 'tinker, tailor' business so they wouldn't have ammunition."

"Then?"

"The Cousins are very puritanical."

"Pity we lost those colonies. We might have beaten some sense into them."

Smiley said, "Stay while I speak to Peter." He punched a button on the intercom and asked his secretary to ask Mister Guillam to come by at his earliest convenience.

"Of course."

"What have you found, Connie?"

"Nothing actionable, but several of my boys and girls keep noticing swirls and eddies in Asia, especially around Laos and Cambodia. It's hard to get a fix because there are so many of the traditional iron curtain distractions."

Smiley leaned back and looked at the ceiling. After a long moment, he said, "Then maybe it's time to clear the board."

***  
One of the new boys passed Peter Guillam on the stairs and said, "Control's looking for you." 

"Where?"

"His conference room."

Peter nodded his thanks and went to the top floor where the line of dead rooms held their secrets. One had a door open, and he looked in.

"There you are," Smiley said mildly. "Come in." He indicated the chair to his left. "Please get the door, Connie."

He was surprised when she remained, sitting near the door in a chair just out of his sight line.

Smiley opened a file and handed Peter a photograph. He went cold when he recognized Mark. His hair was a little shorter, and he wore new glasses, but it was Mark. 

"Mister Smiley -- Control -- I…"

Smiley indicated that Peter should stop. "You did as I asked and cleared your life of anything incriminating." He glanced at the photo. "It can't have been easy for you."

"No." The bare word hung over them all.

"A call came in late last night complaining about the noise at a discotheque in Soho. This man was among those arrested. He was released without charge this morning, but…" Smiley trailed off leaving inferences open.

"It could kill Mark's career. The school where he works is very conservative."

"I don't think they need to know about it. Certainly, they won't know from us."

Peter said, "Ah."

Connie added, "The complaint was made to the local police. They called the station directly, from a call box in _Mayfair_."

"Sloppiness?" Peter asked.

Smiley said, "Unlikely. A warning, perhaps." He let Peter think for a moment before adding, "As part of our deal to share sources and intelligence, the Americans are picking people randomly to polygraph."

Connie snorted, "Not that the results are worth the paper those machines excrete."

Smiley said, "Not that they allow us the same freedom with their officers."

Peter said, "I take it that my name…"

"Is on the list for next week, yes. I'd like you to talk to Mendel. Tell him anything you can think of that might be used against you, against us. If I know about it…"

Peter nodded. "Someone -- American, Russian, or even on our own team -- wants me gone."

"My name came up, too," Connie said.

Peter sighed. "Someone wants the new Control isolated."

Smiley said, "They say nature abhors a vacuum. I think power hates vacuums more."

"Who's racing to fill my shoes?"

"That's a discussion you should have only with me," Smiley said, "If you think of anyone." He glanced at the photo still lying between them on the table. "I'm sorry about this."

Peter said, "I believe you, sir." He stood and took Smiley's nod as a dismissal.

As he left the office, Connie came after him. "Thank you for not offering to resign. He has too few people left he can trust."

"I'll need my pension one day." He did his best to sound cynical.

"Won't we all, darling." Connie stared at him a moment. "Your office is private. I keep a bottle in my desk. I could bring it up?"

When she'd first returned to the Circus, with a major promotion from her previous status, Peter had thought her a harridan with nothing genuine to contribute. About three months after George Smiley became Control, a net was pulled tight on an IRA operation and a surprising number of medium to large fish were in it. It took him a day or so to ferret out the process, but he realized that Connie Sachs had been instrumental. Her memory for conversations was nearly eidetic across four languages, and her ability to see a pattern from just a few details was an invaluable resource that had mostly been wasted since the war. 

He finally said, "I hope it's not the rotgut you purchase at the off license."

She grinned. "You watch too many westerns. No, this is worth your while."

"Five minutes, then. I'll round up a couple of glasses from the canteen."

***  
They'd both knocked back the first round of, surprisingly good, scotch, without saying a word to each other. Connie poured them each a second one.

Finally, she said, "The service doesn't mind, you know. Not much. Your preferences."

"Really?"

"It's not illegal any more, and you're more dangerous to them without a secret of some sort. Especially, you and your ilk."

"Faggots?" Peter took a mouthful of whisky to take the taste of the word away.

"Scholarship boys. It's the Americans who worry about where your willy is happiest."

Peter let the silence stretch again.

"Scholarship boys are useful, do you see. If everything stays in the hands of the aristos, well, inbreeding. You end up with dross like Haydon who, give him his due, had a decent mind, but couldn't keep his pants zipped and decided that the dreary sameness of Russia was more beautiful than the freedoms of the West."

"I don't follow."

Connie knocked back her drink and poured another. "I knew Turing. I was one of the Bletchley girls, good breeding, good mind -- pity I wasn't pretty with it -- but exactly what they needed in a burrower. I moved up, and Turing was … we wouldn't have won the war without him, that's a fact. But they hounded him, once his immediate usefulness was over." 

She frowned at her glass. "The military run around collecting bits of colorful ribbon with jewelry attached to it, gold braid and feathers everywhere, and then they're so worried someone will think they're poofters that they hound the ones who really are." She sipped for a moment. "You and Turing are dangerous to them. Most scholarship boys they can control by promising that their daughters can marry up -- if they're pretty enough -- and their sons can get a better scholarship to a better school -- if they're smart enough. They won't make it into the Lords, but their grandchildren just might. You're not going to have grandchildren, so you have nothing to lose if you decide to leave."

"And the Americans?" Peter poured himself another glass.

"Less gold braid and no feathers, but have you seen all the pretty bits of ribbon they give out? I swear they have one for hitting the urinal the right way in basic training."

Peter said, "Doubtful. I've shared too many loos with them."

Connie barked out a laugh. "My point stands. They're afraid that if they don't winkle out the opposition, whatever that is at any given moment, they'll be mistaken for it." She poured another. "You're good for the service. You'll stay good for the service as long as your compass points true. Well, if you follow George, that will keep it showing north."

"Loyalty to one man over loyalty to country?"

Connie shook her head, "Loyalty to country because it could produce that man."

"Why me? I assume originally it was because I was enough younger than the suspects and I'd been Ricki Tarr's handler, but once 'tinker, tailor' was over, why me?"

"When we found out what happened, you offered to tell Ricki his Irina was dead."

"Control didn't let me. He brought Tarr in and told him personally in his office."

Connie said, "Exactly. He gave Ricki Tarr, as nasty a piece of work as we've ever hired to hunt scalps, the dignity of hearing it officially and from the man in charge. But you offered to take the most difficult duty any commander has off his shoulders. Very few have that kind of mettle."

"It was just…"

"Common decency. It's as rare as common sense."

"Are you still pursuing Karla?"

She peered at him. "I'm not as drunk as all that."

"All right, then, why didn't Mister Smiley bring Mendel in? Make _him_ official?"

"For occasions like this one. You'll answer everything truthfully while you're attached to that ruddy machine. When the Yanks try to present a major revelation about your past, George already knows. If it's official, then it has an impact on your career. If it's unofficial… So Mendel takes care of things he needs to know unofficially."

Peter nodded.

"It's late. I should review the last of the dispatches before I go home." 

Peter capped the bottle.

Connie said, "Keep it."

"Thank you, Connie."

***  
The following week, one of the girls that Haydon and Bland used to pursue knocked at Peter's office. "Control is looking for you, Mister Guillam."

"Thank you, Sarah."

He was surprised to see several of the new men at the table, as well as Connie Sachs. 

Smiley motioned for him to sit in the chair to his left and then distributed the briefing papers. "I'm certain you've all noticed the stacks of papers and the yarn board in Connie Sachs' area. She's pursuing Karla, as we all are in our various ways, and this is what her team has found." He gave them all a few minutes to read the précis, before continuing. "We can't touch Karla or any of his direct operatives in the Soviet area of influence, not right now. But we can starve him of information from Western sources and hamper him that way."

He pushed out another stack of sealed folders. Each one had a different name on it.

Smiley said, "Take your briefs, please. We have contacted Mossad, Interpol, and French and West German intelligence and will be making a coordinated sweep tomorrow. I will be the central coordinator for the operation, talking to my counterparts in other services. Connie will assist me and all Commonwealth coordinators will report to her. The rest of you will report to Mister Guillam as he's in charge of the British operation." He turned to Peter. "You'll also report directly to me."

Peter squinted at the paper and then looked at Smiley. "And the Americans?"

"Won't be involved in this operation," Smiley said. "I've arranged for your polygraph with them to be deferred to next week."

"Thank you, sir." Peter smiled quietly as he read his brief.


End file.
